(DORSEY DIXON)

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The "Weave Room Blues," perhaps his most significant industrial composition, was written in 1932, and was what he [Dorsey Dixon] called his first blues....

The song became a standard during the trade union drive in the Richmond County mills in the early '30s -- a drive which the Dixons wholeheartedly supported.

The "Weave Room Blues" and Dorsey's later industrial songs well express the dissatisfaction of those mountaineers who had swapped the plough for the loom and were now entangled in the fluctuating fortunes of the textile industry. Understandably, these workers, once used to supporting themselves, albeit meagrely, were now dependent for their livelihood on the "company" and had little chance of returning to the land.

MIKE PARIS, "The Dixons of South Carolina," Old Time Music 10, Autumn 1973, London, GB, p. 13.

Working in a weave-room, fighting for my life
Trying to make a living for my kiddies and my wife;
Some are needing clothing, some are needing shoes,
But I'm getting nothing but the weave-room blues.

With your looms a-slamming, shuttles bouncing in the floor,
When you flag your fixer, you can see that he is sore;
Trying to make a living, but I'm thinking I will lose,
For I'm sent a-dying with them weave-room blues.

Harness eyes are breaking with the doubles coming through,
Devil's in your alley and he's coming after you,
Our hearts are aching, well, let's take a little booze;
For we're simply dying with them weave-room blues.

I've got the blues, got the blues,
I've got them awful weave-room blues;
I got the blues, the weave-room blues.

Slam-outs, break-outs, knot-ups by the score,
Cloth all rolled back and piled up in the floor;
The harness eyes are breaking, strings are hanging to your shoes,
We're simply dying with them weave-room blues.

I've got the blues, got the blues,
I've got them awful weave-room blues;
I got the blues, the weave-room blues.